Space, moon, water

September 25, 2009

The discovery of extensive presence of water on the moon, made by India's first moon mission, has space scientists already dreaming of colonization. Although one ton of moon water-rich material could yield only 32 ounces of water, according to early calculations, the fact that it is possible at all is creating a lot of buzz among the space exploration world.

It is fair to applaud the success of the Chandrayan I mission that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) carried out with considerable success. There were two probes mounted on that craft, India's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) which separately confirmed the presence of water.

The significance of water should be seen in the context of our ambitions to use the moon as a base for more advanced space exploration. Any plans for setting up a lunar base always ran into the prohibitive costs of carrying water there. Now that we know for a fact that there is water which we will be able to mine in the not too distant a future, it is reasonable for the lunar community to feel excited. The discovery is expected to bolster NASA's as well as India's and China's plan for manned missions to our nearest celestial neighbor.

As an aside I have to get this bilious thought out of my system. Now that India has found the presence of water on the moon, it can also look for some of that right here on this planet for a large section of its water-deprived population. And such a mission may not even require designing a complicated spacecraft. Digging a few deep holes might be enough.